Black blood and black hearts
by elegant.malice
Summary: His black blood has pierced many red hearts and he muses on his own. Would it be as scarlet as a human's heart or as pitch-dark as his blood? Introspective fic on Crona


Disclaimer: Nothing in Soul Eater is remotely mine.

* * *

"**Do I have a black heart for the black blood or do I have black blood for my black heart?"**

Crona ponders on this question as he drags Ragnorak along the cobble floor. It screeches something awful but he ignores it, face frowning in concentration as he tries to decipher the meaning. Spending so much time getting locked up my Medusa has provided plenty of time to think. While it certainly didn't yield many happy answers, it provided a good enough distraction from all the abuse Ragnorak throws at him.

He racks his head and realises that before he can answer the question, he needs to know which came first. So he goes to Madame Medusa and she sneers at him, "I created the black blood first, the rest is history."

So she didn't believe that he was truly evil. That was good - it showed him that there could be a possibility of something good in him. Ragnorak laughs mockingly in the back of his mind, calling him an idiot.

On his next mission, before he swings Ragnorak down on the man cowering in front of him, he asks him the question. Confused at the sudden change, a small part of the wounded soldier hopes he can escape mortal peril. He figured he could make a run for it and he tenses in anticipation.

"Well?" Crona demands. The man takes one look at the crazed look in his eyes, sees the blood running down his sword and the red red red that paints his whole body. Before he can reply, Ragnorak opened its mouth and screams in his face.

"Monster!" He panics and tries to scramble away just as the sword slices his head clean off his shoulders, sending it bouncing on the cobblestones. Crona glares at it with violet venom in his eyes.

So...he has a different answer.

He spends the next day alone in his cell, contrasting 2 images in his head. One was of medusa, condescension in her eyes as she scoffs at him before walking away. The other was of the man with fear dancing wildly in his eyes just before they glaze over and he stopped twitching.

They had no reason to lie but both were equally confident of their answers. He scratches his head - he didn't know what to do! They contradicted each other. What now what now what now

Ragnorak hisses at him to shuts up and he - blinks - continues stabbing anything that moves.

Maka was smart and she scores high for her tests which means she should definitely know the answer. He goes looking for her and finds her in the canteen at the center of all her friends. He hesitates, suddenly shy to approach the boisterous group but as luck would have it, Maka catches sight of him and gives him a warm smile of welcome.

He inches cautiously and asks, watching her with an intensity quite unlike the shy darting looks he usually gives. Eyes burning with violet flames, he awaits her reply. Here Maka proves that she is indeed smart when she gives him a hug instead.

"Baka, there is a third factor called crona. The crona factor is greater than the black blood factor and is independent of the black heart factor," she places both hands on his back, warm and solid.

"Your heart is real and certainly not black. It beats, just like mine," and guides his hand to her heart so he can feel her heart beating strongly. _Lub dup Lub dup_ _Lub dup _

So many things he could do; rip out her heart there and then, get ragnorak to stab her till she dies or paint her in shades of red red red r_edredred_**redred**. They were so close and Maka wasn't even on guard. He tenses, the madness singing in his veins and screaming her name, Ragnorak was giggling as he slowly raises one hand -

- And places it on Maka's back.

Then he's out of the room with steps lighter than a feather.

Because it didn't matter what his past was, didn't matter that the black blood flowed in his veins, didn't matter that his hands were stained with the blood of those he killed.

Because here...they truly believed him to be good.

He throws back his head and laughs and laughs and laughs.

_**Fools.**_

They were missing the point entirely: Medusa, the man and Maka.

All of them were wrong. It wasn't that there was an additional factor called Crona. It was that there was one** less** variable.

He puts his hand on the top left of his chest. Waits for a few seconds, then. Nothing beat under his hand.

Black heart? Demon heart? Human heart?

Oh, they didn't know him at all.

He never had a heart _in the first place..._

He's smiling so hard the grin cracks his face into two. Overhead, the moon joins in with his laughter, blood dripping down its chin.

* * *

**A/N: Oh, I truly enjoyed putting that little twist at the end. Things would get too fluffy otherwise.**

**Please review! I would love to hear from you what you think about this :)**


End file.
